Commentary

I could feel them taking inventory of my outfit, my hair, and my non-designer shoes, and inevitably, as soon as whomever I was talking to chalked me up as being a “fresh-off-the-boat,” they simply turned to someone more important.

The richest people and companies — such as Fortune magazine’s list of the world’s largest companies or the world’s richest — are atleast based on measurable criteria of wealth, and even they hit and miss, because not all assets are in accessible public databases.

Casting a glance back at how India appeared to the outside world just a few months ago is rather like looking at grainy footage of yesteryear: a booming economy, IT whiz-kids making waves all over the globe, top ranking in international Test cricket, the ICC Cricket World Cup in the bag, Bollywood on the roll.

For India to join the developed world it needs much more than eight-lane highways and spanking new airport terminals. It needs to drag its politics into the 21st century, along with the rest of the country.

The Never Return is a unique breed of people. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that they think they are the most fortunate people in this world. For them India is a third world country which is confined to those once-in-a-few-years visits for the sake of completing the formality of seeing their loved ones

It is time for some soul-searching within the community, before more Indians discover themselves attracting the relentless public humiliation that Kaur’s boorish and arrogant conduct has subjected her to.

Islamic terrorists should indeed be ferreted out wherever they are. But King’s hearings and other Republican and right wing theatrics and political grandstanding serve only to inflame bigotry while doing nothing to address the genuinely serious problem of homegrown terrorism.

The humiliating pat-down of India's Ambassador Meera Shankar might sensitize Indian diplomats to the indignity and pain experienced by thousands of its citizens seeking consular services every year at the hands of inept, indifferent and callous Indian consular officers.

Unlike China, which showcased its economic and organizational prowess on the global stage by pulling off a spectacular Olympics, India was internationally humiliated by the ineptness and chaos that engulfed the Commonwealth Games.

When I was growing up in Tennessee, names like Anderson, Baldwin or Caldwell were the norm during roll call in class. Once the teacher got somewhere to the mid-C’s, there’d be the inevitable pause; a squinting of the eyes … then they would give it a go.

America is reeling from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, but the Right is obsessed with the faux outrage over the
construction of a Muslim cultural center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center.

As more and more Indian Americans storm the citadels of political power behind Jindal and Haley, overcoming public prejudices against non Judaea Christian office seekers will be their next great challenge — and, hopefully, accomplishment.